Baird/Abbott have only hours left to commit Royal National Park to World Heritage Tentative List

The Greens have rejected NSW Environment Minister Rob Stokes' comments on the tentative listing of Royal National Park and are calling on the NSW State and Federal Government to ensure the 2015 deadline is not missed.

Australian Greens Senator for NSW Lee Rhiannon said: "Environment Minister Stokes is misleading in saying that additions could be made to the tentative list ‘at any time'.

"If we miss the midnight 31 January 2015 deadline, the next chance Royal can be considered for tentative listing is 2016.

"Community group First National Park, put enormous effort into ensuring that the NSW State and Federal government had all the information they needed to support this nomination in 2013.

"Now at the 11th hour, we understand there have been no moves by either the State or Federal Ministers to add Royal to the tentative list.

"I am now worried that there is no goodwill at a State or Federal level for this nomination to the tentative list and we are going to miss the 2015 deadline.

Greens NSW Spokesperson for the Environment, Dr Mehreen Faruqi MLC, said: "The NSW and Federal Coalition governments have hours left to put their mouth where their money has been and submit Royal National Park for Australia's World Heritage Tentative List.

"While the NSW Environment Minister may have changed, the Government should surely fulfil their commitment to prioritise world heritage listing for Royal National Park which is our first national park and the second oldest in the world.

"Protecting biodiversity must be top of the agenda, yet both the NSW and Federal Government appear to have lost interest in the Royal National Park since their announcement to commence the process of nominating this area of Outstanding Universal Value for world heritage listing more than a year ago.